Seeking Alpha Announces Acquisition of CressCap and Appointment of Steven Cress as New Head of Quant Strategies

NEW YORK, Jan. 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Seeking Alpha, the world's largest platform for equity analysis, today announced the acquisition of CressCap for an undisclosed amount. CressCap is a next generation analytics platform for investment professionals, which will add advanced quantitative analytics and data to Seeking Alpha's robust investing analysis platform. Steven Cress, Founder and CEO of CressCap, will join Seeking Alpha as Head of Quant Strategies to oversee the growth and strategic development of the new offerings for investors. 

Retail investors seeking in-depth financial data and insights have long been faced with inadequate provision from Wall Street. Sell-side analysts release their notes exclusively to the institutional world, and data platforms have been priced out of reach of Main Street.

To resolve this shortage of data and to help validate the choices investors make each day, for 14 years Seeking Alpha has worked tirelessly to crowdsource insights on the US stock markets. Seeking Alpha's curated content is made readily available to investors from a network of over 16,000 stock analysts, traders, economists, academics, financial advisors and industry experts. Their coverage spans over 85% of the Russell 3000, by far more than is available from any other source.

Seeking Alpha's acquisition of CressCap will bring new levels of deep insight and timely analysis to users of its platform. Based on the platform's newly adopted quantative modelling features, investors can expect autonomous stock ratings for each one of five core investing styles – value, growth, earnings revisions, profitability and momentum. Through these vectors, consumers will have access to real-time quant analysis of the market, which will help them screen investment ideas, detect hot investment opportunities, and buy and sell stocks.

"Our team partnered with CressCap because they are a leader in quant analysis, and their market data capabilities are unmatched in the industry," said David Jackson, Founder and Vice President of Product at Seeking Alpha. "We brought Steven on as Head of Quant Strategies because of his extensive experience in the space, his sharp vision and leadership. He will play a vital role in supporting the evolution of our platform and will be at the forefront of developing solutions that will help our users achieve their investment goals. He undeniably brings valuable expertise in working with quant analytics and is the ideal asset for us to successfully advance our platform/offering."

The acquisition will further strengthen Seeking Alpha's offering by providing completely unbiased real-time analysis that will ultimately help consumers increase their returns and mitigate risk. By acquiring CressCap, Seeking Alpha will be able to provide retail investors with factor grades of investments, which are supported by robust data, in addition to unparalleled qualitative fundamental analysis already provided by Seeking Alpha.

Cress, who will help lead the partnership and data integration between the two organizations, brings over three decades of experience in international finance markets to the team. He has a unique understanding of scaling data and analytics businesses, having built his own firm from the ground up and advising a number of successful companies throughout his career, and is highly regarded as an innovative leader of research, trading and portfolio management.

"My expectation is Seeking Alpha's research product will be unmatched by top-tier sell-side firms or independent research houses," said Cress. "The new partnership will be the first of its kind to blend timely qualitative crowdsourced research together with advanced real-time quantitative algorithms and analysis.  The combined platform will be a game changer in the investment industry and it will revolutionize the way retail and institutional investors approach their decision process for buying and selling stocks. Investors can expect to feel empowered from the new level of access, sophistication and transparency of our data and market analyses."

Today's announcement follows another strong year for Seeking Alpha in which it was able to grow its network, which currently boasts more than 15 million visitors who use its platform to consume content and engage in topical conversations. This acquisition will allow the platform to expand its reach even further and attract those who are seeking actionable stock market opinion and analysis, and informed discussions surrounding finance.

About Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is an industry leader in mining the wisdom of the crowds for insights on every topic of interest to investors. Their seasoned editors curate content from a global network of 16,000+ individual and corporate contributors, including stock analysts, traders, economists, academics, financial advisors and industry experts. Seeking Alpha generates 42 million visits monthly from loyal users who come not only to consume content to help inform their personal and professional financial decisions, but to contribute to and participate in the conversation.

Founded in 2004, Seeking Alpha's mission is to empower investors by raising the quality of insight and information available to them. We provide analysis, news, and data to stock market investors, via our website and mobile apps. We make money through advertising and our rapidly growing subscription businesses: Essential and PRO+, subscription upgrades to the core Seeking Alpha experience and Marketplace, in which our contributors offer their own private investing communities and research.

For more information, visit: https://seekingalpha.com/

About CressCap Investment Research
CressCap Investment Research has developed the next generation analytics platform for investment professionals. We are a pioneer in the fusion of statistical computing systems and autonomous research analytics. Our platform provides professional investors a unique user-experience to monitor changes in fundamentals and financial metrics with a well-defined scoring system and directional recommendations that are refreshed in our research reports automatically every day.

Our web-based platform furnishes investors with a tool that has automated many of the key functions of a financial analyst - enabling our viewers to save valuable time and money in the security selection process. Our systematic investment research portal provides analysis on multiple asset classes and publishes fresh research reports on more than 6,500 equities across the globe, every day.

For more information, visit: https://cresscap.com/

SOURCE Seeking Alpha

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